Monsanto to acquire The Climate Corporation

ST. LOUIS — Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed company, has struck a deal that gives it access to a new technology platform.

Monsanto announced Oct. 2 that it signed a $930 million deal to acquire The Climate Corporation, a San Francisco-based company that combines data, climatology and agronomy to underwrite weather insurance for farmers.

The Climate Corporation

“The Climate Corporation is focused on unlocking new value for the farm through data science,” said Hugh Grant, chairman and chief executive officer for Monsanto.

The Climate Corporation was founded in 2006 by a team of software engineers and data scientists formerly with Google and other Silicon Valley technology companies.

Since then, the company has built a technology platform combining hyper-local weather monitoring, agronomic data modeling, and high-resolution weather simulations to deliver a complete suite of full-season monitoring, analytics and risk-management products.

In other words, The Climate Corporation uses big data to make weather predictions, a specialization that could greatly benefit Monsanto’s bottom-line.

The deal is set to close the first quarter of Monsanto’s 2014 fiscal year.